RIAA Caught Lying About Stopping Lawsuits

from the shocking dept

The RIAA and the record labels who make up its main membership keep asking folks like us to "trust them" when they come up with new plans to force people to hand over money. They say that we shouldn't criticize them until the plan is set, but they haven't yet shown the slightest reason to grant them an ounce of trust. Just last week, we suggested that they stop suing people, if they were so intent on turning over a new leaf. And, while they did finally announce plans to abandon mass lawsuits, the fine print is anything but encouraging (and, it's increasingly clear that it was done more to save money than out of any more reasoned strategy).

However, there was a bit of surprising news that came out of the press barrage after the announcement about giving up on the mass lawsuits: the RIAA claimed that it had stopped filing lawsuits months earlier. That certainly didn't fit with the story we had just seen earlier in the week of new lawsuits, and now Ray Beckerman has put together a list of recently filed lawsuits by the RIAA and its major record label members in the last few weeks.

In other words, the RIAA has been caught lying yet again. Shocking. And, yet, they expect us to "trust them" to come up with a better solution -- one negotiated in backrooms behind closed doors without major stakeholders getting to take part? Forgive us for being skeptical that any such deal will be reasonable. What's really disappointing, though, is to see some major tech publications get taken in by this, insisting that somehow the RIAA really has turned over a new leaf. You would think that reporters covering this space wouldn't be so gullible.

Reader Comments

I think "lying" is inaccurate. If I recall correctly, the "plan" is a possible approach that WMG is trying to evaluate in a trial to see if it is even feasible. Until an agreement to run such a trial is crafted and executed, and until the trial is actually conducted and evaluated by the trial participants, it seems to me that WMG would continue its current efforts pending the trial's outcome.

Ars let me down again

Ars is continually letting me down. They seem to go out of their way to give the RIAA the benefit of the doubt. To me this whole campaign is about bypassing the law and saving money on lawsuits. I don't want to be part of that system, and I would prefer that the RIAA waste money on lawsuits. At least my rights will be protected this way.

Opps

Testing the waters

Maybe the RIAA realizes their lawsuit with Charles Nesson could dramatically cut into their revenues if the "threaten everyone with a lawsuits" tactic is found unconsitutional. They might be test-marketing this strategy as a replacement. Just a guess though--I am devoid of insider knowledge.

RIAA

And this is somehow news?

There is a place even below most widow ripping off investment schemes, con artist who pray on 95 year old grannies, and the insurance fraud lawyers. This is the RIAA and their lawyers where running a close second in sleaze to pedophiles is the one thing on RIAA Lawyers job review with the "Needs improvement" box checked. The real shock that anyone would dare treat the fact that one of these proto-slimes lied as a news story, shows that someone has lost their hold on reality.

Re:

If I recall correctly, the "plan" is a possible approach that WMG is trying to evaluate in a trial to see if it is even feasible.

That's not what this post is talking about (at all). The RIAA clearly claimed that it had not filed any new lawsuits since August. That's simply untrue.

I'm pretty sure my post was clear on this.

Until an agreement to run such a trial is crafted and executed, and until the trial is actually conducted and evaluated by the trial participants, it seems to me that WMG would continue its current efforts pending the trial's outcome.

Again, the lie was the RIAA saying it had stopped filing lawsuits months ago. To find out that's not true seems like an overt lie.

RIAA makes Mafia Look Good

I knew that the RIAA wouldn't stop suing seven year olds and their grandmothers. Now they are using ISP's as their own private goons as well. Maybe the should have tried to sue the Adware and Spyware providers that support the p2p client software. Of course suing Adware and Spyware out of existence would have actually made the RIAA look good and they couldn't have had that!

Re: Re:

lying before the court too

The RIAA and Directv, each time they sue an innocent person had to lie to the court. Where the person was innocent, it can be nothing but a lie. While the Justice system knows they are lying in in many cases, The justice system does nothing to protect the public. Next time you are a juror or a witness, do what Justice has done and ignore Justice. Jury Nullification is a good start. Let's see what Justice thinks when they are ignored just like innocent victims are.